Vitae philosophorum

Being asked what learning is the most necessary, he replied, How to get rid of having anything to unlearn. And he advised that when men are slandered, they should endure it more courageously than if they were pelted with stones.

And he used to taunt Plato with being conceited. At all events when in a procession he spied a spirited charger he said, turning to Plato, It seems to me that you would have made just such a proud, showy steed. This because Plato was constantly praising horseflesh. And one day he visited Plato, who was ill, and seeing the basin into which Plato had vomited, remarked, The bile I see, but not the pride.

He used to recommend the Athenians to vote that asses are horses.[*](Cf. Plato, Phaedrus 260 c.) When they deemed this absurd, his reply was, But yet generals are found among you who had had no training, but were merely elected. Many men praise you, said one. Why, what wrong have I done? was his rejoinder. When he turned the torn part of his cloak so that it came into view, Socrates no sooner saw this than he said, I spy your love of fame peeping through your cloak.[*](Cf. Aelian, Var. Hist. ix. 35.) Phanias in his work on the Socratics tells us how some one asked him

what he must do to be good and noble, and he replied, You must learn from those who know that the faults you have are to be avoided. When some one extolled luxury his reply was, May the sons of your enemies live in luxury.

To the youth who was posing fantastically as an artist’s model he put this question, Tell me, if the bronze could speak, on what, think you, would it pride itself most? On its beauty, was the reply. Then, said he, are you not ashamed of delighting in the very same quality as an inanimate object? When a young man from Pontus promised to treat him with great consideration as soon as his boat with its freight of salt fish should arrive, he took him and an empty wallet to a flour-dealer’s, got it filled, and was going away. When the woman asked for the money, The young man will pay, said he, when his boatload of salt fish arrives.

Antisthenes is held responsible for the exile of Anytus and the execution of Meletus.

For he fell in with some youths from Pontus whom the fame of Socrates had brought to Athens, and he led them off to Anytus, whom he ironically declared to be wiser than Socrates; whereupon (it is said) those about him with much indignation drove Anytus out of the city. If he saw a woman anywhere decked out with ornaments, he would hasten to her house and bid her husband bring out his horse and arms, and then, if the man possessed them, let his extravagance alone, for (he said) the man could with these defend himself; but, if he had none, he would bid him strip off the finery.

Favourite themes[*](Here follow three extracts of Cynic maxims or rules of conduct; for, strictly speaking, they had no tenets proper ( δόξαι, δόγματα). The last ( § 13) seems to be derived from Diocles.) with him were the following. He would prove that virtue can be taught; that

And he held virtue to be sufficient in itself to ensure happiness, since it needed nothing else except the strength of a Socrates. And he maintained that virtue is an affair of deeds and does not need a store of words or learning; that the wise man is selfsufficing, for all the goods of others are his; that ill repute is a good thing and much the same as pain; that the wise man will be guided in his public acts not by the established laws but by the law of virtue; that he will also marry in order to have children from union with the handsomest women; furthermore that he will not disdain to love, for only the wise man knows who are worthy to be loved.